Hey, y'all. Just wanted to give you a heads up that I actually have some plot in store for the next chapter. It will shake things up a little bit: give us some progression of time and change the scenery.

I don't believe in extensively plotting things out, but the meat of it will involve Cadrius going home to the Hundred Duchies and finding that shit has hit the proverbial fan. I've got a few hooks for each of the characters involved, but, as always, you are welcome to take, reject, or go entirely off on your own tangent.

It's what makes this game great.

Last edited by Cadrius; 17th of June, 2009 at 00:17.
Reason: No emoticons allowed.

I think that the Church of Hieronious and its plot to use the threat of an orc invasion that we've discussed before could be the trigger for this. The Hundred Duchies (or part thereof) might be the sacrificial lamb that the Church plans on handing to the orcs in order to get other nations to unite behind them.

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Physics is like sex. Sometimes it yields practical results, but that's not why we do it.
-Richard Feynman

The church having an orc ally/minion with enough power to threaten/invade all of the hundred dutchies is fairly big. I was thinking something more along the size of enough to invade a city, which is still pretty big. Do you want to shift to this scale?

what are the goals of the church - Is there a pontif who wishes to take over the lands himself? A secret cabal of dukes who wish to unite/subjugate the rest ofthe lesser dutchies? Does Thuranauch want to destabilize the Dutchies in anticipation of an imperial reclaimation?

If the worship of Hieronious is as wide spread throughout the human lands it seems, it then raises the question as to which branch/faction of the church is acting - who do they control, what do they know, are they acting alone, what are their allies goals?

Maybe its neither the orcs nor the humans who are ultimately behind seeding the hostilites between the orcs and humans, maybe a third party. A dragon who want to keep the pesky humans fighting each other so it can have some peace, a cabal of demonologists who wish to use the ensuing slaughter in some infernal blood ritual (they could even be magically hidden memebers of the church), the fragments of the elven nation who wish to see the humans driven from the continent. etc etc ad nauseum.

If the Hundred Duchies are as fractured as Cadrius's posts thus far have implied, then I could see the church planning to sacrifice some of the smaller boarderland duchies, where their influence is likely less. However, once an orc horde gets on the warpath, its hard to slow them down and the cost could end up being much higher as each duchy acts to protect its own interests before those of the collective whole.

As for church goals, we've already discussed them as being ensconced within the political structure of many places through their role as judges, and because they tend to maintain a standing "army." However, we haven't put them as being the formal heads of any territories, so these positions are somewhat percarious. Perhaps one of the goals of this maneuver is to change that. The plan might be to sacrifice a few duchies to the horde to bring home the threat. Then, the church, with its standing "army" would take the lead as forces were gathered to push back the orcs. This would in turn put them in position to take charge in any reconquered territories and thus establish formal church control over some portion of the human lands. Once that's done it'll be easier to "merge" or "ally" with neighboring lands for strength rather than outright take them over.

__________________
Physics is like sex. Sometimes it yields practical results, but that's not why we do it.
-Richard Feynman

Just as a question, heading to the Hundred Duchies is still the plan for chapter 12, right? I'm polishing off my second IC post, and if things are going thataway I'd like to start bending Keiron's trail towards the Duchies myself.

Cadrius, your playing things close to the chest but can you tell us if it's the whole of the Duchies that's affected, or just part? If just part, I'd like to maybe thread a few rumors in as Keiron starts to get closer. Vague things, and most will be contradictory, but it will help set the mood. I've been reading a lot of Lovecraft lately, and just have the picture in my head of an old man telling fantastical stories in an inn about the troubles in the Duchies. This is still a ways ahead, I know, but I like planting seeds when I can. It makes it seem like I have a plan, instead of winging it like I really am...

Bringing this back up to the top to cover some new ground. After much deliberation I realized I was trying to cover just too much with Chapter 12 (the introduction of the duchies, the Church's involvement, the orcish threat, the continued malice regarding the curse and the undead, etc). As such I've elected to split it into two chapters.

Just don't try to do too much, things progress muchly slow in this game. Also we need a reason why we didn't turn to the wizards when the impending zombie plague hits. We didn't part on the best terms, but they're much closer.

Fireballs get rid of zombies too. Okay sure, priests are better suited to doing it, but the priests are far away and the mages are right around the corner. On a meta level I agree, don't go to the wizards. But we need an IC reason why we don't atleast try.

Shade would out and out refuse, after what we went through there. But on top of that, Cad has connections to the church of Hieroneous in the duchies and might actually be able to get us the help we need.

itches: So basically when we become aware of the zombie issue, Nicos suggests talking to the mages about it, Shade threatens to stab him, they argue in a way that in no way carries sexual overtones and we decide to compromise (send a message and Nicos only gets stabbed a little). We encounter Maeko again and convince her to head out to talk to the mages while we go to talk to the church?
itches: Sounds like a good enough plan to take to the thread and let the others pick it apart
Gralhruk: Excellent
Gralhruk: *stabstabstab*

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Also Cad, I may have got the initial scale of this zombie thing wrong. Is it that every person who gets suck turns into one, or just some of them?